The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1887-05-19
THE SPHINX.
The Human-Headed Lion God AL
ways a Marvel.
1T Existed Before the Pyramids and Was
Covered With Sand and Restored
When History Was Young
Later Labors.

Bv the ordinary traveller, the Sphinx
mas for long been looked upon as one
of the wonders of the world; silently it
has stood there chin-deOp in sand, gaz-
ing with a PARKWAY look in its eyes,
as if it would probe the very depths of
eternity. As one gazes up into its
weather-beaten, time-worn face, one
longs for it to be able to speak and tell
-us of its history, who formed it, and
why. To-day, the energy of French
engineers is endeavoring to solve, in
part, the question. NJ. Grebaut, the
present keeper of Antiquities at the
BOulak Museum, has been struggling
-valiantly to disinter it from the sand,
which has buried it almost to the throat
All day long Arabs are employed load
ing trucks with the sand, which they
bring up in buckets to the tramway
above them. This is not the first at
tempt which has been made to uncover
this colossal monument of Egyptian an
tiquity. Thothmes ". cleared away the
sand; but by the fourteenth century B.
C. it was buried to the chin; in 1917,
Signor Caviglia brought to light the
flight of stone steps, forty feet in width,
described by Pliny; and in 1869, at the
time of the opening of the Suez canal.
the great Sphinx was cleared of sand
as far as the plateau upon which the
paws rest. Excavations southwark are
in progress, the result of which will
Sphinx stands in the middle of a huge
amphitheater hewn by man out of liv-
ing rock, be true or not.
We go below the level of the present
ground-for the steps lead down, not
uD to the SphinX-to gaze at the bat
tered monster, and are astonished at
his proportions. The human-headed
lion god, the impersonation of the sun
at rest, is upwards of one hundred feet
in height, and one hundred and ninety
feet in length. From west to east he
lies. in a straight line with Khafra's
Pyramid, his face being towards the
east. His enormous paws, partly
hollow, have been restored in Roman
times, and are well nigh covered with
the Scribbles of Greek travellers, who.
like Tom Jones and John Brown of
these nineteenth-century days, have felt
it incumbent upon them to leave the
memorials of their visit behind them.
In the space between the paws. which
is thirty-five feet long and ten feet wide,
an altar stands; originally, there was a
small sanctuary here, lined with votive
tablets, but only the stella of Thothmes
". now remains.
Three temples encompassed the
Sphinx-One to the north, dedicated to
Isis, which we know, from an inscrip-
ton, was still used in the sixth century
b. c., as one Psametik, who was son of
Uzahor, the son of Noferabra, was then
1.-The prophet of Hormakhu," and of
Isis, Queen of the Pyramids, and offered
to them holy incense. A second stood
upon the south side. wherein Osiris
Sokar, the king of the underworld, was
specially invoked bv the pilgrims who
f1ocked to his worship. The space all
round here was once a vast metropolis,
called in the hieratic writings "Ro-set,"
the door of the Northumberland, and
many strange stories are told of this
spirit-haunted, enchanted region. The
third temple is dedicated to Hormakhu,
the Sphinx himself.
The age of the Sphinx it seems i'm
possible to know; but we gather that it
was standing in the days of Khufu, from
n memorial tablet which speaks of the
temples; for there we learn that "He,
the living Hor, King of the upper and
lower country-Khufu, he, the dispenser
of life, found sanctuary of the goddess
Isis, the Queen of the Pyramid, besides
the temple of the Sphinx, northwest
from the temple and the city of Osiris.
the lord of the abodes of the dead. He
built his pyramid Chat of the Lights
near the temple of that goddess; and he
built temple for the Kings daughter
Hontsen. near this temple" 1t existed
then, at any rate before the days of the
Pyramids of Gizeh; and Maspero thinks
that if it is not actually prehistoric, it
may, at all events, be looked upon as
the oldest monument in "ancient
Egypt"
Set into the breast of the Sphinx is the
celebrated stella of Thothmes ". of the
twenty-third dynasty. 1t is fourteen
feet high, and contains long inscrip-
ton, recounting how the King owed his
elevation to the throne to the interfer-
-ence of the god Hormakhu on his behalf.
Bas-reliefs upon the tablet show us the
King offering incense and pouring out
a libation to the Sphinx, with beard
and other divine attributes. 1t also re-
lates his dream, wherein the god bids
him dig away the sand. The following
Iranilation is quoted from Brugsh Bey:
''on one of these days it happened.